RICH DAVIS / Courier & Press
John and Wanda Engstrom, who became volunteers at the LST 325 a couple of years ago, plan to be in Mobile, Ala., this weekend for festivities marking the 10th anniversary of the ship's trans-Atlantic voyage home to America.

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Spectators watch the LST 325 pass Evansville's Riverfront from Dress Plaza in July 2003. This was when the ship first came for a visit.

EVANSVILLE - A decade ago, the LST 325 was rusting in Greece when 28 Navy veterans (average age 72) salvaged it and steered it 4,250 miles through rough Atlantic waters to Mobile, Ala.

This weekend, with the World War II ship now permanently moored in Evansville for the past five years, 21 of the surviving "Gold Crew" and many other volunteers and LST 325 fans will gather in Mobile for a 10th anniversary celebration.

Monday marks the day — Jan. 10, 2001 — when the LST 325 sailed into Mobile harbor to escorts, horns and crowds waving from docks and bridges.

She's a piece of history right in our backyard."

But beyond some look-back moments, a banquet, picnic, memorial service and visits to the more-famous USS Alabama, the LST's national board also will convene in Mobile and possibly discuss the ship's long-term future.

A committee has begun evaluating the LST's options, according to Kenny Adams, the ship's executive director.

"We're just evaluating where we are. We're not saying there's anything the matter with Evansville," Adams said.

A 10-year contract between Evansville — which lured the LST 325 here with support that included a new municipal dock — and the ship's association expires in October 2015.

Jack Cunningham, Evansville's liaison to the ship's board, and Ron Riecken, owner of Inland Marina where the 325 is docked, will be in Mobile for the festivities and will attend Saturday's board meeting.

Cunningham said the LST board is studying its options mainly because if the ship ever did move, "it takes a lot of preparations."

But Riecken and others — including local author Mike Whicker, who chaired the original Evansville committee that lobbied to bring the ship here, and Hal Pierce, a retired Navy captain who coordinated the ship's stay in Mobile from 2001 to 2005 — said they would be surprised if the LST left Evansville down the road.

"Board members I know think Evansville is a perfect geographical location," said Riecken. "It's within 500 miles of anywhere by car and (a good staging point) for the ship's trips along rivers," such as the Ohio and Mississippi.

Whicker, the ship's executive director from 2005 to 2008, said the LST has made money in Evansville from tours the past five years (more than 70,000 visitors), enabling it to carry out repairs and restoration and make trips, such as last year's up the Ohio to Pittsburgh.

While a proposed World War II museum hasn't materialized near the 328-foot-long ship, Whicker said, "Evansville means everything to the LST. Before coming to Evansville, the LST was sitting in a junkyard in Chickasaw, Ala. (outside Mobile). The people of Evansville rescued this great historical ship ... and built it a dock it deserves."

Whicker called the LST "our city's only national tourist attraction" and said he wished local tourism officials would do more to take advantage of it.

Mayor Jonathan Weinzapfel agreed the city "pulled out all the stops" to attract the ship by building the dock and said he looks forward to Evansville being the ship's home port "for many, many years to come."

The LST 325 is the only operational Landing Ship Tank left out of 1,051 made in World War II. Capable of carrying 20 Sherman tanks and 300 combat troops plus a crew of 109, it served at Normandy and during other sea-based invasions.

There's talk of the ship visiting Normandy in 2014 for the 70th anniversary of the Allied invasion of Europe, although it wouldn't sail under its own power but piggyback with another vessel.

According to Pierce, Mobile has other attractions, including the USS Alabama, "and we didn't respond well, didn't have the big enthusiastic program for the LST. Evansville spent money and they deserved the ship.

"It's amazing what the volunteers have done with the ship in 10 years. I think the future of the ship in Evansville is wonderful. I'm not a big fan of moving ships around."

Chuckling, he recalled phone calls he got in 2000 from Suda Bay in Greece where Bob Jornlin, a retired Navy captain from Illinois, was spearheading the old-timers' effort to bring the ship back from Greece where it had served in the Greek Navy from 1964 to 1999.

As the Navy port coordinator in Mobile, he promised them a place to anchor, albeit a bit skeptically: "Jornlin told me what they were trying to do, and I thought he was nuts. I didn't see how they could do it, but they made a believer out of me."

It wasn't long before Whicker, then a Reitz High School teacher, got the ball rolling for Evansville. After seeing a History Channel documentary about the Atlantic voyage, he contacted Jornlin and formed a committee to raise $250,000 in cash and in-kind services to bring the LST here for a 10-day visit. Nearly 35,000 Tri-State residents turned out in July 2003, far more than at any other stop that summer.

The letters LST were welded into Evansville's memory because its own wartime shipyard, from 1942 to 1945, had produced 167 LSTs — but not the 325, which was made in Philadelphia.

"People were lined up down Waterworks Road. It was great," Whicker recalled.

Months later, when Whicker learned the ship was searching for a permanent port, the committee went to work again. Whicker credits Weinzapfel with "making the dock a reality," and Evansville was chosen as the new site over two other finalists, Peoria, Ill., and Jeffersonville, Ind.

Among those going to Mobile this weekend are John and Wanda Engstrom of Newburgh, LST volunteers for two years. He's an Army veteran who served in Vietnam.

"She's a piece of history right in our backyard," said Wanda Engstrom.